Monday
by gaycopshow
Summary: Gah boring title is boring. Another B-Day gift fic! Slash! I can't think of a summary! Exclamation point!


It's a quiet night for once. After 2 weeks of the machine giving out numbers on a near constant basis, Harold finally has a few days of rest. Exhausted from being awake for 2 days straight, he slept through what was left of Sunday and woke up early the next morning. Now it's Monday night and he's standing at the window, looking out at the foot traffic in his under shirt. The safe house is located in a busy area, a useful place to get lost in the crowd. There's an older woman walking through the crowd with a bright yellow coat and brighter hair, chasing after a newspaper. A dark woman in red stops to help her out. It's an unusual sight in this city.

Reese is asleep in the bed behind him.

Harold must have slept for about 10 hours before waking up that morning. It's a new record considering his current job title of "concerned third party" and issues with pain. There aren't any painless ways to sleep, only less painful ones. His neck aches from sleeping on his side, but the cramping in his leg is at a lower ebb today.

The last number was mainly uneventful. A pharmacist was replacing his neighbor's medication with placebos in an attempt to stop him from parking in front of his house, permanently. The neighbor was kindly informed of the matter and the police were called, but not before Reese was pushed through a large window. "I was sloppy," John said. "Just a lack of sleep, that's all."

* * *

After spending that morning working on security upgrades in the safe house, (no new numbers today) he falls asleep again on the couch. Not much later, he wakes up to the sound of someone knocking at the door. The fear of inevitably being found comes back before he checks the camera footage from his laptop. Mr. Reese is waving at the camera, butterfly bandages on his forehead and face. Quickly pulling himself up, he opens the door and leans again the door frame groggily.

"So you found me," he says.

John shrugs, looking smug. Harold rubs his eyes in exhaustion and says simply, "What John."

John pauses and blinks. He then tilts his head to the side and says, "I can't reach the cuts on my back,"

He waves him inside.

* * *

John's snoring lightly. According to his laptop, there are no new numbers today.

John's going to keep asking questions. He's going to avoid them and it's all going to fall apart. Their game is going to continue indefinitely. John will drop in a small fact in an attempt to start a conversation or gage his reaction, and in return he'll continue to ignore him. It'll be something about MIT, or his favorite colour, or Will. He's surprised John hasn't brought him up yet. But with this new level of intimacy or whatever it is John isn't going to accept being rebuffed anymore. It's going to hurt John to protect himself and things will be worse than before. They'll become distant and John will redouble his efforts at gathering information on the city's single specimen population of flightless birds.

_Things fall apart. The center cannot hold._

* * *

Sitting on the coffee table, John unbuttons his mauve shirt as Harold prepares the first aid kit. There are bandages along his arms and shoulders, but that's not what draws his attention. He can see where blood and serum have soaked through and lightly stained the back of the shirt. There are a dozen cuts gently oozing along John's back. Some of them look as though someone has been digging at them. "I removed the glass, but they haven't stopped bleeding yet," John says.

"You slept on this?" he says incredulously.

"I took the sheets to the Laundromat," he says as if that answers the question.

He applies alcohol to the wounds without warning. If John's quick intake of breath is any indication it must sting. Good.

"I wrapped the wounds but I didn't do a very good job," John says with amusement.

Harold 'hmms' and attends to a large thin angry cut above his right shoulder blade. It looks to be the worst of the bunch. He's proven right when he finds a miniscule shard embedded in the bottom half.

"You should have come to me earlier," he sighs. "You didn't do a very good job with the glass either."

"What can I say? I'm used to being on my own," John says quietly and with a trace of perhaps fondness, if he can believe his ears.

They don't talk after that. He uses tweezers to pull out half a dozen bits of glass and John stays quiet. The liquid alcohol drips down John's spine in a way his eyes can't help but follow. As he packs up the first aid kit, he asks a question.

"Surely you didn't come here just to play doctor? It must have taken you some time to find me, and you could have gone elsewhere. Unless I'm getting rusty at hiding myself in my old age," he says.

"No," says John with a soft smile. Then he kisses him.

* * *

They're both careful. Harold doesn't want to reopen John's wounds and John doesn't know what hurts and what doesn't. They're lying on their sides, facing each other on the bed. John must tan naked because there aren't any tan lines on his hips.

He has his hands on John, pulling them closer together until their cocks line up and John makes a strangled guttural noise. John kisses and bites his collarbone and tries to prevent his hips from thrusting involuntarily. With that Harold's face gets hotter and it's almost too much. He pulls John up into a slow kiss and John gets so close to him that he's almost leaning over him now. Harold smirks against his mouth and brings their cocks together, moving his hand up and down.

"Oh you-" John says, but whatever he was going to say, he doesn't get to finish. He gives into the sensations and clings to Harold as they both sweat and move. The sweat on John's face drips from hairline and down his face.

He's getting close and so is John by the looks of him. Harold's head is down until John shakily tilts his head up to look into his eyes. Suddenly Harold's face flushes and he comes hard, a few seconds before John does.

* * *

He can hear John stirring from his sleep. "Is there a new number?" John asks sleepily.

Harold feels wistful. He sits on the bed next to John and looks at his rumpled state. A bandage on his shoulder is starting to peel off and his hair is sticking up in odds places. "No," Harold says.

John holds his arm softly, pulling just enough for Harold to feel it but not enough to pull him back into bed.

Sometimes the straight forward approach is best.

"John," he says. That gets his attention. He's halfway sitting up now and noticeably more awake. "I still can't answer your questions, any of them. I told you I'm a very private person," he says with regret.

Face softening, John pulls Harold into bed. He puts his leg between John's and his face in the crook of his neck. Who knew John was a cuddler? He closes his eyes and tries to memorize to feel of John's body here, the heat and smell of him. This safe house will be a constant reminder of what he could have had. He'll have to sell it. Just as he thinks he's getting used to the idea of this being the last time he can be this close to John, John speaks.

"This is new. There are things I've done too… things I'd rather not talk about," he says quietly. Harold looks up. John gets a faraway look and unfocuses his eyes to a point just to the lower left of his face, but only for a moment. John looks up again and his smile slowly comes back. "I've decided not to ask," John says.

"Never? John, I find that hard to believe," he says. And it's not something I entirely want, he thinks.

"No, not forever, just as long as you need," John says. "And as long I need." His voice shakes a little at that. "As long as it takes."

John grins cheerfully and takes a deep breath. Holding Harold's hand, he brings it up between them.

"And even then," John kisses his fingertips, "Only if you're ready."

He thinks the 'only if you trust me' is implicit. But it's easy to misread the situation when you're this close, when you can't see past your own emotions, strengths and weaknesses. John is trusting him with so much when they both have so little left.

Oh, John is sucking on his fingers. Giving in is so very tempting but he needs to say something.

"John," he says. He pulls his fingers out of John's mouth and tries to gather his thoughts. He thinks he already trusts John, but he doesn't know what to say. He settles for shifting closer and placing their foreheads together before drifting off to sleep.


End file.
